792 793
night, Levin sat with hanging head not knowing what to do. Not to
speak of supper, of preparing for bed, of considering what they were
going to do, he could not even talk to his wife; he was ashamed to.
Kitty, on the contrary, was more active than usual. She was even livelier
than usual. She ordered supper to be brought, herself unpacked their
things, and herself helped to make the beds, and did not even forget to
sprinkle them with Persian powder. She showed that alertness, that
swiftness of reflection comes out in men before a battle, in conflict, in
the dangerous and decisive moments of life—those moments when a
man shows once and for all his value, and that all his past has not been
wasted but has been a preparation for these moments.
Everything went rapidly in her hands, and before it was twelve
o’clock all their things were arranged cleanly and tidily in her rooms, in
such a way that the hotel rooms seemed like home: the beds were
made, brushes, combs, looking-glasses were put out, table napkins
were spread.
Levin felt that it was unpardonable to eat, to sleep, to talk even
now, and it seemed to him that every movement he made was un-
seemly. She arranged the brushes, but she did it all so that there was
nothing shocking in it.
They could neither of them eat, however, and for a long while they
could not sleep, and did not even go to bed.
“I am very glad I persuaded him to receive extreme unction tomor-
row,” she said, sitting in her dressing jacket before her folding looking
glass, combing her soft, fragrant hair with a fine comb. “I have never
seen it, but I know, mamma has told me, there are prayers said for
recovery.”
“Do you suppose he can possibly recover?” said Levin, watching a
slender tress at the back of her round little head that was continually
hidden when she passed the comb through the front.
“I asked the doctor; he said he couldn’t live more than three days.
But can they be sure? I’m very glad, anyway, that I persuaded him,”
she said, looking askance at her husband through her hair. “Anything
is possible,” she added with that peculiar, rather sly expression that
was always in her face when she spoke of religion.
Since their conversation about religion when they were engaged
neither of them had ever started a discussion of the subject, but she
performed all the ceremonies of going to church, saying her prayers,
and so on, always with the unvarying conviction that this ought to be
so. In spite of his assertion to the contrary, she was firmly persuaded
that he was as much a Christian as she, and indeed a far better one;
and all that he said about it was simply one of his absurd masculine
freaks, just as he would say about her broderie anglaise that good
people patch holes, but that she cut them on purpose, and so on.
“Yes, you see this woman, Marya Nikolaevna, did not know how to
manage all this,” said Levin. “And...I must own I’m very, very glad you
came. You are such purity that....” He took her hand and did not kiss
it (to kiss her hand in such closeness to death seemed to him im-
proper); he merely squeezed it with a penitent air, looking at her bright-
ening eyes.
“It would have been miserable for you to be alone,” she said, and
lifting her hands which hid her cheeks flushing with pleasure, twisted
her coil of hair on the nape of her neck and pinned it there. “No,” she
went on, “she did not know how.... Luckily, I learned a lot at Soden.”
“Surely there are not people there so ill?”
“Worse.”
“What’s so awful to me is that I can’t see him as he was when he
was young. You would not believe how charming he was as a youth,